


Rest

by feeding_geese



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:50:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feeding_geese/pseuds/feeding_geese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta figures some things out and finally gets a decent night's sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest

**Author's Note:**

> All that awesome Hunger Games stuff? I don't own it. Suzanne Collins does.

It’s just after sunset, and I’m awake. Not jittery or anxious, just awake. It’s a weird feeling that I haven’t had in, oh, years I guess. Tonight will be the eleventh night sleeping in her bed, and last night I slept all the way through. So did she. When I woke up, I took the opportunity to sketch her quickly without dark circles under her eyes. I’ll send it off to her mother tomorrow, after she leaves. I have this image in my head that I used to shoot to whenever a flashback hit and I wasn’t sure if I should be afraid of her. Dr. Aurelius made me watch footage from Cressida of her breaking down, running to Haymitch for comfort. It helped me to remember that she’s not a fiery monster of war. She’s just a kid, forced to grow up too fast and too painfully. Scared. Damaged. In need of protection. Now I want to replace that picture with the vision I had this morning. Still world-weary and broken, but not without hope of repair, needing affection more than protection. Like me.   
When the anxiety of going crazy in the night and snapping her neck shifted to the anxiety of worrying if my hand was resting too low on her back, I could get comfortable. Nightmares about losing her became old friends that I welcomed in contrast to the terrors I normally fought. Although daytime was still an ongoing identity crisis, nighttime was becoming the only time I felt like myself. So when I woke up after ten hours of dreamless sleep, I was pretty sure I could live in her bed if she’d let me.   
We’ve spent the whole day falling in and out of sleep. Not a struggle, just drifting in and out. Trying to decide if we should get up, if it’s too awkward and too soon to spend an entire day in bed together. Then she’d yawn and burrow under my arm and be out. If this is what life is going to be like from now on, I’m flushing all my sleeping pills down the toilet.   
Even my old dilemma feels like a comfort. Far from being afraid of her, I’ve spent the day wanting to kiss her, trying to remember what it felt like. I worked out that there were some she didn’t mean, but some that she did. I’m sure they felt different, but I can’t remember. I just know that I can’t push it. She’d probably let me, but if I want it to mean anything, I’ll have to wait. Her lips have been really chapped, the new skin poking through when she bites at the peeling parts. It’s endearing and frustrating at the same time. 

Delly yelled at me the other day when I told her I really wanted to hug Katniss in the daytime, accusing me of shifting my focus to avoid dealing with bigger issues. I told her wanting to hold the girl who just months ago I had been programmed to kill was a pretty significant step. But I had already worked through all that in the Capitol. Even though I still have days where I don’t know if I like strawberries or blackberries, I haven’t thought of Katniss Everdeen as anything less than a friend and ally since before I came home. My episodes are more akin to flashbacks now, and I actually prefer the odd shiny one, because I can tell myself it’s false. Delly, on the other hand, thinks that I’m trying to rush a normalcy that may never return. Small steps are best. So I backed off the affection and started on controlling my muscle spasms. She wants to come home, I know it, but she wants Loam to finish out the school year first. There have been enough lapses in his education. With their mother and father gone, she’s the parent now.   
“No, I understand completely,” I told her. “Family first.” The line went dead for a long time, long enough for me to think that I lost her. When she came back, I could barely hear her.   
“I’m going to let it slide because I know you’re confused. But I never, ever want to hear you say you aren’t my family. Ever. Do you understand?”  
“…yes?” I remembered Delly and I being very close, but memories are choppy. I tried to figure out if we’re actually related somewhere down the line.   
“Okay. Believe me, if you were on your own out there, I’d be on the first train. But there are people to take care of you, if you let them. Are you letting them?”  
“I’m going to my sessions.”  
“That’s not what I asked. Do you talk about what’s going on like you do with me?”  
“Why would I? They’ve got their own problems.”  
“Dammit, Peeta!” I’m not sure if Delly was much of a swearer, but the word sounded almost comical in her high-pitched voice. I didn’t laugh, though. “I don’t know if you remember, but you’re a world-class deflector! You need to stop hiding and you definitely need to stop pretending that you’re going to do this alone!”  
“I’ve done pretty well so far.” A slow, deep, frustrated breath.   
“I know you can, Peeta. It’s not a matter of can, it’s a matter of should.” It’s true that I hadn’t been very open outside of my sessions. I ask Katniss or Haymitch about memories now and then. Nothing important. “You’re so quick to give and so reluctant to take. And right now, you need to take a little! So the next time you have an episode, I want you to sit down and tell one of them exactly what you’re feeling. If you’re too embarrassed to tell Katniss, talk to Mr. Abernathy.” It’s hard, asking for help, and I don’t know why. Delly said it came from being afraid of being a bother to my mother and from wanting, craving really, positive attention. “They’re not going to think less of you, Peeta, they really aren’t. I can be there, I can listen, but, as much as I want to, I can’t understand.”  
“I don’t want you to, Delly. I don’t want you to ever understand.” She knew what I was saying. I wouldn’t wish my memories on anyone, let alone my closest friend. My only family.  
“I know, but…you have people who do understand. Maybe not all of it, but better than I can or Dr. Aurelius or anyone else in the psych ward. So I really, really think you should talk to them. Promise me you’ll try.”  
“I’ll try.” Maybe.   
“Promise.” I let the line fall silent for awhile. “Peeta, we can both play stubborn. I have her phone number. I’ll call her and we’ll have a nice long chat about your progress.”  
“Alright, I promise!” A sigh.   
“You know, the two of you really have a lot in common,” she said. “You just hide behind a smile instead of a scowl.”   
“You know, you’re not always as nice as I remember you.” A loud, giggly laugh filtered through her end to mine.   
“Then you’ve forgotten that you need someone to push your buttons every now and then. But you’re my brother and I love you. So close your eyes.” I closed them. “Okay. I’m giving you a big hug.” I smiled slowly, picturing a warm, steady, sure embrace.   
“How big?”  
“So big you can’t hardly breathe,” she whispered.   
“I miss you.”  
“I miss you, too. Every day. And we’re going to come home. I promise.”  
“…okay.”  
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”  
“…okay.”

I’ve been thinking about the conversation all day, in between sleep. What should I say and when should I say it and should it be her or Haymitch? It started messing with my naps, so I pushed it back. Delly didn’t give me any sort of deadline.   
We watched the sun go down through her bedroom window.   
“I don’t think I can sleep anymore.” It’s the first thing she’s said to me in five hours except for “move over.”  
“Me either.” I arch my back and feel a series of pops and clicks work down my spine. She’s looking at me. Maybe watching the muscles tense and release under my shirt or the long burn marks on my arms or the other marks I don’t want to tell her about. “What?” She ducks her head quickly and rolls her shoulders back.   
“I’m hungry. I don’t want you to make anything, I just really need to eat something.” Agreed. It wasn’t too long ago that going to bed with a rumble in your stomach was natural. Now I can rely on a full icebox and pantry whenever I want it. This is the first time in weeks that I’ve missed a meal.   
“You go ahead. I think I’m going to shower. I feel gross.” She pulls at a nasty snarl in her hair.   
“Me too. I put new towels in the downstairs bathroom for you.” The only time I use the one attached to her bedroom is if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, otherwise I’ve taken over the one on the first floor. There’s a third one, outside her mother’s room, but I think she’s nervous that she’ll catch me coming out in a towel or something. We do this awkward little dance around each other’s personal spaces every day, only really getting close at night. But then, unexpectedly, our bubbles will inch a bit closer. We’re wearing pajamas instead of day clothes to bed, and when I let my eye dart down when she leaves the room, I don’t think she’s wearing underwear underneath them anymore. It’s hopeful, but also a relief. I was starting to sweat under all these layers.   
There’s a bureau off of the living room where she lets me keep clothes. I think there might be more in these drawers than in the closet in my bedroom. I’m caught in a momentary dilemma.   
“Hey,” I call upstairs. “Are you putting on pajamas or regular clothes?”  
“Pajamas, I guess. I’m not going anywhere. Were you going to go home for a while?”  
“I wasn’t planning on it.” I decide that, as long as we’re taking steps, I might as well say what I’m thinking. “Do you want me to go home for a while?” There’s a long silence.   
“If you want to go, you can. But you can stay, too.” I know it’s a struggle. I’m not really sure what the best move would be. I can hear her sigh from the stairs. “Wait. Stay.” Then I hear her make a dash for the bathroom, slamming the door shut. That’s another inch.   
I pull a fresh set of pajamas out of the drawer, but bypass the underwear. If she looks too uncomfortable, I’ll change. I deposit the old set into the basket designated for my dirty laundry and stand in the shower for a good while, letting the water run over me before I start my routine.   
I start at my legs. I don’t know exactly what materials are in my prosthetic, but they don’t rust and they don’t melt. Aside from the missing leg, my lower half has fared pretty well, considering all my body has been through. I count the scars on the way up, assess their condition. The burn scars from the explosion look different from the burns they gave me in my cell. Those are more deliberate, designed to hurt a certain way. I have to give them a little credit for taking pride in the job. The incision marks are so small that I can barely see them. I can feel them all. I’m losing control of my hands, so I stop the exam. Lean against the shower wall and focus on my breathing until my muscles belong to me again. That’s enough of the shower.   
I wipe the steam from the mirror and concentrate on my face while I brush my teeth and shave. Thank the psych ward for safety razors. We shared a straight razor at home, and right now I probably would’ve slit my throat. I still manage to nick myself once or twice, but not too badly. I can start to see my eyebrows making a welcome reappearance.   
She’s in the kitchen when I come out, her hair plastered damp down her back in varying lengths. A quick assessment confirms that we are indeed in a no-underwear territory. We both wear the same kind of pajamas from 13—cotton drawstring pants and an undershirt—but hers has straps where mine has sleeves. When she turns to the side I can see a hint of the curve of her tiny breast. I try not to stare, instead focusing on the tea kettle like a lunatic.   
“Hey, are you alright?” My eyes snap to hers. “Are you here?”  
“Yeah, I’m here.” She sits down, rolling an apple in her hand.   
“Good. You were in there a long time.”  
“Was I?” I really don’t know. Time is messy. “Sorry.” She shakes her head.   
“Mine take forever. All the scars make stretching hard.” She takes a knife and starts carving up the apple between us.   
“I can do it.” Her eyes flit up to mine.   
“I’m not so sure.” She pokes at a cut on my chin with the butt of the knife, a ghost of a smile on her chapped lips. Then it’s gone, as quickly as it appeared. “Did you get the shakes again?” I shrug. “Do you know what set it off?” Another shrug. I don’t want to talk about it. Not with her. Not with anyone, really. She cuts the seeds out in little half moon shapes. “Delly says you need to start talking. That you look like you’re better but you’re not.” I feel a wave of panic. Of betrayal. It isn’t a big deal, but to me it is. She said she wouldn’t call.   
“When did she call you?” My tone must tip her off, because she chooses her next words very carefully.   
“I called her. Last week. Dr. Aurelius gave me her number in case I had a question and I couldn’t reach him.”  
“What was your question?” I want to know why she’d make a long distance phone call instead of just asking. Then I remember that I wouldn’t even tell her that I had an attack in the shower an hour ago.   
“I noticed you stopped taking those blue pills. I wanted to make sure that was okay.”  
“Those are my sleeping meds.”  
“Yeah, that’s what Delly said. Mine are white, so I didn’t know.”  
“You keep track of my pills?”  
“You keep track of mine, don’t you?”  
“I’ve got so many more.”  
“Then maybe you need some help keeping track?” Her arms clutch around her sides and she stares at the kettle. “I mean, I can understand if you don’t. I wasn’t much help before.” Her voice drops to a pained murmur. “I wasn’t any help at all.” When I was under the venom, her reluctance to help me sort things out seemed like she didn’t care if I lived or died. Now I know she was just as frightened as I was. Hurt and sad and angry not at me, but for me. Maybe one day we can have a long talk about our guilts. Not tonight. So I slap a bandage on the problem and hope it doesn’t fester.   
“There was a lot going on. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have killed you if you had come to see me.” I reach my hand out slowly and place it in the center of the table. Halfway. “So I’m glad that you didn’t.”  
“What about now?” she stares at my hand. “If you want me to leave it, I’ll leave it, but…you’ve been helping me a lot and it doesn’t feel right—”  
“You don’t owe me anything—”  
“It’s not about owing you!” she yells and I pull my hand back, feeling defensive. She tugs at where her bangs are growing back in. “It’s not about debts. It’s about helping each other. And I…” she slumps down so she says it to the table. “I want to help you get better.” For once I try not to over think it. To just let what happens happen.   
“Okay.” When she lifts her head I can see the waterline rimming her eyes, sticking to her lashes. So I put out the caveat, because if she’s going to cry, I’d rather she do it all at once. “But you’ve got to know that there’re things I can’t tell you, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. What happened in the Capitol, what they…did…to me, I absolutely do not want to talk about. I don’t care if it’s avoidance or repression or whatever the shrinks want to call it. It’s off the table. Can you respect that?” Her hand stretches out across the table and I think she’s going to lay it on top of mine, but it stops midway, poised to shake. She nods, and I accept the deal. When I take her hand, she squeezes it so tightly that my scars hurt. I don’t want her to let go.   
She makes me tell her about the incident in the shower, but she doesn’t press me further than I want to go.   
“Is there something I can do? I mean, if I see you starting to shake?”  
“There’s not a lot to do except let it pass. Though maybe…if you could tell me where I am, that might help. And if I’m holding something sharp, I’d appreciate it if you’d take it away from me.” She lets out something that could be a laugh, then swallows it guiltily until I smile and let her know it’s okay. I have a feeling our senses of humor are going to take a morbid turn from here on.   
I’ve reached my limit for the evening and she sees it.   
“There’s something I’ve wanted to do for a few days, but I don’t want to do it alone.” I take her offered hand and she leads me into the living room, sits down on the sofa and pulls me down beside her. I have no idea what’s going to happen. Her hand sinks down between the cushions and comes up with the remote control.   
“Which channel first?”  
Last week we heard that our television programming would be expanding from one Capitol-controlled propaganda machine to fourteen distinctive channels. The Capitol’s channel would broadcast national news and government updates concerning rationing, policy, and elections, but would also feature entertainment that was popular in the Capitol. The other networks were going to be devoted to their respective districts. Right now, there’s a mixture of progress reports and imagery meant to showcase the scenery to other districts. Educate us about the world outside our homes. So far a film crew hasn’t shown up in 12, but we have enough people in town who would warn us to stay in when they eventually do.   
“Start with one, I guess.” The screen pops and fizzes and illuminates with a vibrant cityscape of district 1. I have little bursts of memories of each district from the Victory Tour. Foods I ate, grim faces of dead tributes’ families, dresses Katniss wore. That world seems so distant now, and so immediate at the same time.   
She flips straight past 2 to 3, in case he should appear on the screen. We spend a long time on 4, watching the waves crash against the shore. We’re both thinking of Finnick, of Annie and Mags. She’s probably thinking about her mother, that it’s about time for a phone call. I want to tell her how her mother is doing. That she’s mourning, but refuses to disappear again like when she lost her husband. That healing others is giving her a sense of purpose. That she wants to see Katniss so badly it hurts. But then I’d have to tell her we’ve been talking behind her back, and I don’t want to risk this tentative closeness.   
Every district is in a varied state of repair. 11 looks particularly bad. Rebels burned large swaths of farmland to deprive the Capitol of food. There are so many mouths to feed there. Although whatever they’re getting now is still probably more than they ate under the old regime. Our own district is shown through still images. I close my eyes when they show a shot of the square, afraid that I’ll see the oven lying in a melted heap. I feel her hand on my arm and, when I don’t respond, my face.   
“Hey,” she whispers. “It’s okay. I changed the channel.” My eyes still won’t open. They feel glued shut. “Come on.” Her thumbs wipe under my eyes awkwardly. I might be crying, although I don’t feel anything. Finally I will them open. Her face is right up next to mine. Her eyes smile sadly. “There you go. I think that’s enough of 12. Let’s see what the Capitol’s showing.” She passes 13 to the last station. I want her hands to stay on my face, but I tell myself again not to push it. So I swallow my wants and remember that anything worth having takes time.   
The Capitol channel is the only one not broadcasting news or stills. It looks like Plutarch’s got his music program going, but I’m not sure I could qualify what I’m hearing as singing. It sounds like the performer is doing everything she can to mask her true voice. I think that this kind of singing must be popular in the Capitol, where everything real is smothered under glitter, robbing anything of substance.   
“Oh wow,” Katniss breathes, her eyes locked on the screen. There’s no way she can buy this, or like this. Is she hearing something I’m not? I listen harder. It still sounds like noise. She leans forward, elbows on knees. “This is horrible!”   
“Oh good,” I slump back against the cushions. “I was afraid I forgot what music sounded like!”   
Her laugh comes out in a loud snort, then a chuckle that builds until she can’t stop. It’s the first time I’ve heard her really laugh since the last arena. From the sound of it, its been building up inside her for months. She’s gasping for air now, and when she starts hiccoughing, I lose it. She tries to sock me in the arm, but she’s too winded and ends up just clinging to my sleeve. Every time the laughter starts to subside, we catch a glimpse of the Capitol singer and another round starts. Screw it. If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that you only get somewhere if you take the risk. I lean over and grab her legs and lay them out across my lap. At the light prickle, I pull up one of her pants legs a little.   
“Hey, your hair’s growing back!” The laughter stops. She’s bright red.   
“Don’t,” she reaches over to pull it back down. It may have been too much too soon, but then she says, “it looks horrible.” I grab hold of her legs.  
“No it doesn’t. It’s good. It’s healing.” Suddenly she won’t look at me anymore. “Are…are you worried about…Katniss, I don’t care what you look like.”  
“I’m a mess,” she whispers.   
“So am I.” I swallow hard and spit it out. “But I’d rather be messed up with you than by myself.” She hiccups and wipes her nose on her arm and it strikes me that she isn’t even eighteen yet. We’re not even adults, yet we’ve been broken and abandoned to fix ourselves. I’m getting a little angry at her mother, at Haymitch, when she says it between sniffs.   
“Me too.”  
“…really?” She nods. “Come here.” She scoots up into my lap and hugs me, her chin hanging over my shoulder. We rock together slowly and I let my hands move up and down her back in long, comforting strokes.   
“I’m really glad you came back,” she murmurs, and I know she’s not talking about coming back to 12.  
“Same here,” I sigh. “They don’t give hugs in the psych ward.” Her grip tightens. Tomorrow we’ll return to awkward brushes, fretting over boundaries, trying to avoid labeling whatever it is we’re doing. But tonight is nice, and I enjoy it for what it is. So I’m surprised when she asks me.   
“Can you not go back to your house?”  
“What, like tonight?”  
“Any night. If you want to go back in the day, if you need your space…but at night…can you keep staying here?”  
“What if you want your space?” I can feel her heart pounding fast. She can probably feel mine, too.   
“Stay anyway.” I take a deep breath so I don’t say something stupid, like I never want to leave. I want to live in your house and sleep in your bed and do everything to forget that there was a me who feared you, who hated you, who didn’t love you with every piece of my being.   
“How about this, then: no matter what kind of day either of us is having, when the sun goes down, I’ll be here.” I really didn’t think she could get any closer, but she manages it, like she’s hell-bent on squeezing all the pain and the crazy out of me. So I do the same until our scars ache too much and we have to let go.   
We sprawl out on the sofa and continue to watch the Capitol’s idea of talent. I pull a throw over us. She lets my hand rest on her stomach and doesn’t complain when my thumb runs over her navel. She reaches back and wraps one of my curls around her finger.   
“You’re hair’s getting long again.” They cut it close to the scalp in the psych ward, for easy maintenance. I haven’t really felt like my face belongs to me until it got shaggy and unruly.   
“Yours, too.” I tuck an errant piece behind her ear. “That bald spot’s almost gone.” She laughs again and elbows me in the stomach. “They didn’t do that in the psych ward, either.” She moves her hand away and gives my arm a squeeze.   
“You aren’t in the psych ward anymore.” There are only three words she could say that would make me happier.


End file.
